Online or in-person CFI renewal
CFIs: When your certificate is up, where should you turn? Editors at Large Thomas A. Horne and Dave Hirschman debate the merits of in-person and online flight instructor refresher courses.
Long live the FIRCs
No substitute for in-person interactions
By Thomas A. Horne
I’ve renewed my flight instructor certificate via courses on videotape (back when VHS was king) as well as online. I prefer the more focused, interactive features of a live FIRC, complete with real humans. Yes, there are advantages to online courses. They’re convenient, don’t require travel, and let you go at your own pace. But to me, it’s a sterile, distant, and impersonal experience. There’s no spontaneity, no way to ask questions, and none of the personal give and take that is at the heart of flight instruction. Oh, and it’s boring, too.
Recently I attended a FIRC near the Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport. Bill Gunn, an AOPA Air Safety Institute contract instructor who works for the Texas Department of Transportation—an instructor since the 1970s, and an airplane owner—was in charge. There were 21 attendees.
Who were they? Airline pilots, a medevac helicopter pilot, a physician and airman medical examiner, an F–16 pilot who flew in Afghanistan, an attorney specializing in aviation law, an aviation tax specialist, and a sales executive for a manufacturer of business jets, to name a few. All highly experienced pilots and instructors.
Gunn took us through 10 mandatory teaching units, and then some. Good thing, because there’s a lot going on. We reviewed regulatory changes, safety and decision-making issues, the nuances of RNAV approaches, scenario-based training, regulatory news regarding drones, and other news that affects CFIs and other pilots. Did you know that to log an instrument approach for currency purposes you are to fly each segment of an approach, including the missed approach procedure? Me neither. No wonder we paid attention.
Would it be the same if we were alone in a room, glued to a computer screen? I don’t think so. I mean, shouldn’t you be checking Facebook, Twitter, or Email right now?
Yes, live FIRCs appeal to an older cohort. And there’s no denying the pressures to discontinue live FIRCs. Too bad, because young, freshly minted Millennial CFIs could benefit immensely from hearing the insights, opinions, and experiences of vastly more seasoned instructors—not to mention the networking opportunities. How much more rewarding than sitting, mute and incommunicado, in front of a screen for 16 hours. Perhaps the cynics who demean live FIRCS as “lost weekends” ought to instead promote them among CFIs beginning their flying careers.AOPA
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CFI renewal in pajamas
Why online eFIRC is better
By Dave Hirschman
A winter storm was getting ready to dump almost three feet of snow when I received an electronic notice that my flight instructor certificate was due to expire. The AOPA office was closed, my kid’s school was shut down, and roads were impassible. It was a perfect time to delve into the AOPA Air Safety Institute’s eFIRC.
The beauty of online CFI renewal is that you can do the coursework at the time and place of your choosing. If that means reviewing airport security while curled on the couch in flannel pajamas with a snoring Labrador retriever at your feet, so be it.
I’ve renewed my flight instructor certificate online and in person, and both methods have their merits. But when push comes to shove, the online method is irresistibly convenient.
Some prefer in-person FIRCs because of the information they glean in discussions with fellow CFIs, many of whom have vast experience. That’s certainly a big plus if and when it happens. More often, however, CFI group gabs devolve into arcane explorations dominated by a few pedantic blowhards. The low point of my last in-person FIRC was a seemingly endless flight-time-logging dialectic that made me wonder whether my class had been infiltrated by Talmudic scholars. When you lock a bunch of opinionated CFIs in a room for two days, conversations tend to wander.
In-person FIRCs vary in quality based on the presenter and your classmates. But the eFIRC assures you’ll hear from some of best presenters in the country. Rod Machado and Barry Schiff appear on your very own computer screen, and you have the godlike power to silence them, too. (That trick is much harder in real life!) Some of the videos—like the one with ATC audio and graphics of an actual runway incursion in fog—will make lasting impressions.
The eFIRC isn’t perfect. The IACRA registration process can be frustrating. The FAA also requires that all applicants complete a waste-of-time chapter on the history and structure of its WINGS program. But being able to customize the eFIRC with elective topics takes away some of the sting from the make-work ones. And when you’re done, you can scan your paperwork electronically so there’s nothing to get lost or delayed in the mail.
The eFIRC allowed me to get through a snowed-in weekend with something more to show for it other than a freshly dug-out driveway. I’ll be back online when my certificate next expires—and the weather gets ugly—in early 2018.AOPA
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